I would pull an Elop just to steal his 'worst CEO of any large company ever' title.

1. I would write a memo in which I take a massive **** on everything Nokia has ever done and deem all our products not worth buying.
2. I would of course leak the memo to the public.
3. Next I would introduce a really awesome in-house developed phone that receives great reviews and then say that it will not be supported no matter what. I'm not so sure why I'm doing this, but whatever..
4. I would rest Nokia's smartphone future on some obscure marginal OS like RIM's QNX or MS WP7 and not release any phones with it for at least one year.
5. Meanwhile, I would fire everyone who ever had something to do with in-house software developing just so there's no going back no matter what.
6. That's about it.

I also have a plan B, but I'll leave that for later..

first provide a $6M signing bonus. Without that i would not speak.

You're cheap.

I wouldn't open my mouth for less than 300 mill.

I mean really, just look at what Elop has cost Nokia, around 3 billion or so in the last year. (if one extrapolated the upward curve they were on before February to now and compared to current results).

I'm willing to go for only 10% of that.

After that:
- Sure we can do WP, and Android
- We'll do Maemo (or Tizen) as the high end "aspirational models"
- and Symbian will continue, and be eventually transferred to Maemo/Tizen
- We will make no more than 10 different models of phones, no more than 20 different hardware configurations, and no more than 80 possible configurations of hardware and colors. (That should cut down on Nokia's current complication in manufacturing by at least 2/3!)
- I'm going on a extended market research tour to Asia. Stops to include beaches, temples, and monasteries in China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines! Due to the importance of this market area I can spend no less than 3 months on this trip.

Dear employees,

I am going to piss on your fireworks. Oh wait... I mean Your platform is burning and many of you are going to be fired.

Ecosystem Strategy Synergy Ecosystem user experience Ecosystem.

Yours sincerely

Stephen (E is for ecosystem) Lop


PS: Did anyone just here something drop?

I would issue a burning platform memo about WP7.

I would then oversee the development of a new range of phones.

1) I would start work on Maemo 7, an evolution of 5.. not a re-write, this would be the backbone of a hybrid device, like the Galaxy Note except this would have a slide out keyboard. 8mp rear camera and 2mp front facing camera. Quad-Core processor and 1gb of RAM. 64 GB Internal storage.

2) I would begin work on the first Andoid device, this would be the iPhone killer. It would be comparable to the SGS3 in terms of size and specs (latest processing speeds) but would be in a chassis that's worthy of being a Nokia phone. This would also feature the Pureview camera which would be the real selling point.

3) Keep symbian for the low end devices. Keep them to a maximum of 4 devices.

4) Ensure each of the new devices has a clear roadmap, a successor coming out every 16-18 months while staying true to the unique design of each device.

If this happened, the company would be turned around in 2 years.

depends on whats in the pipeline.

- continue with wp8, stop making new tango devices (probably happening)

- launch a new nokia platform with Qt 5 as fast as possible. Covering low/mid to high end. (probably happening)

- keep s40 for the very low end, but don't invest much in full touch versions etc. (??)

- do one good-looking high-end android phone in the case everything else goes wrong. (not happening)

Hmm, if I stops all smartphone development and focus solely on Nokia 1100 and Nokia 100 (phones without OS), will I be the worst CEO? Or properly doing a lot better?

Announce that going forward, WP7 is a North American mostly endeavor and that movement towards Apollo is swift and all prior phones will indeed get that update.

Re-announce Symbian Belle as Belle, state that going forward Symbian will enjoy a synergy with Nokia like it's had before and more phones like the 808 are coming down the pipe. Drive costs down by their newly found ability to talk to carriers now for certain phones, re-establish a distribution channel in all countries where Nokia is sold (read: sell directly from their website, give incentives for folks to buy from them directly where they keep the money for themselves much like Apple and Dell do now).

Remove Elop from CEO to Manager of North American Sales and give him a much lesser speaking role.

Rehire (silently) the Harmattan folks, give them ownership over the project, allow them breathing room, set them up nicely and on the way out of the door, close it gently with two words "Create magic" and fund them properly for once. Set up a realistic schedule, look at running on top of Tizen and/or continuing MeeGo 1.3 or bring back Maemo as a new(er) line of phones.

Sell dual-sim phones in countries that like them, understand that the carriers will hate me there. Break into other areas, like China, that are starting to push their own stuff, start hiring local talent and push that as part of your new culture - an expanding culture.

Oh... and learn how to communicate better.

Gerbick - you're hired!!!

One proviso though. I reckon closing the door with the words "make magic" is what happened before. It needs to be three words "make magic quickly!"

People arent all the same, so I would..

(Re)launch the N9 and 808 worldwide. Not everyone wants them, but as niche devices, which the press (including the american tech press) has loved, they should see a decent level of success and bring some badly needed brand cachet back to Nokia

Re-arm the N950 as a Nokia Communicator NG and push out ASAP. Also make available a WP version if possible. I would allow swipe to be replaced with a Maemo style manager for maximum flexibility.

Develop a couple of larger tablet style devices - 5.5" and a 7" or 10" with the ability to double-boot or at least choose at point of sale between WP/Harmattan

Release drivers as either source or binary blobs so the linux and Android hacking communities can get to work.

Here's my plan B:

1. Continue support for WP devices.
2. Two specced out Windows 8 tablets available on WP8 launch day.
3. Introduce pureview to launch WP8 high-end Nokias (keep same design).
4. Resurrect MeeGo. Comes in 2 forms (N9 and N950) and 2 size classes (N9 and Lumia 900) in three configurations (32/64/128 GB memory). These models will be refreshed once a year around October and OS compatibility is always 3 generations. This October's models match in CPU/GPU/etc. specs Samsung GS3 / HTC OneX.
5. Announce in-house app team for MeeGo and WP. People get to vote on open forum what software feature is missing, and every month the highest voted feature gets implemented (0.99€ download, or free with the next year MeeGo OS update).


I'm not sure what to do with Symbian, anyway, I think if the above was implemented, nice profits would follow.

p.s. Elop is executing my plan A to the letter. As far as I know, the 31st of May 2012, is the last work day for the Maemo/MeeGo guys still at Nokia.